


Hope

by telm_393



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Mental Health Issues, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 20:47:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/pseuds/telm_393
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of his fight with the Avengers, Loki finds that the battle is not all he has lost. </p><p>(Written for a prompt on the kink meme.)</p><p>(This story is also a fill for the "loss" square on one of my avengers_tables.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope

As the Avengers (a silly little name for a silly little team, though admittedly one Loki underestimated) escort him out of the building (he's been lying on the floor for what seems to have been a very long time, crumpled and twitching), all Loki can think about are the things he thought he had forgotten.

He remembers, now, bits and pieces. Perhaps the blows to the head did him some good, unlocked a part of his mind he hadn't quite been able to access for whichever reason.

He can recall falling, almost weightless and at the same time heavy as stone.

He can recall being among the Chitauri, and then--an idea, a brilliant, fractured idea that made so much sense. Thor was convinced the people of Midgard were somehow _special_ , but they weren't, in the end they were fit for nothing but to be ruled.

Loki thought all of this out between senseless attacks, between smears of blood on his face and teeth on his skin, between what he refuses to believe was his screaming because he does not scream. After a while, though, he stopped screaming and accepted the pain.

Eventually, he always accepts the pain.

The idea, his idea, it was good, and even the Chitauri admitted that, but then--

Loki feels himself burning, as he walks, flanked by the Avengers, he feels himself--

Heat.

No.

It cannot--

Memories in the back of his mind, ones that he supposed were just disturbing thoughts similar to all the other ones he's been having. Loki has been finding it hard to truly grasp reality, lately, but these are not just thoughts.

It falls into place.

He went into heat among the Chitauri, he--

_Is screaming, is screaming even as his body betrays him, as the anatomy--_

_They are males, this much he knows, this much he knows, and to mate with a male--_

_Female--_

_He should--_

_He does--_

_Shifting into the shape of a creature with corresponding anatomy, shifting into a creature that will not be torn apart, it's hard, lately he's been--_

_weak_

_\--and he does not think, does not truly think of what this will mean later, the thought of children does not even cross his mind once and it should have, but it doesn't and that's all that matters, it's the moment that matters and the moment is--_

_unforgivable._

_The pain is not impossible to bear any longer, so Loki just tries to not think--not--think--not..._

_He would like to paint the universe red, maybe._

_The pain is exquisite._

No!

Loki is suddenly gasping like a landed fish, trying to feel something, trying to notice if his body has created a womb for his child to grow inside and--

and it has.

Loki does not understand, does not know how this could be, does not know how he simply could not have noticed, how he could have ignored the child growing inside.

He has been empty inside for so long--

Loki loves his children, loves all his children, and he will love this one, but suddenly he feels an ugly jolt of anguish as he realizes, he knows what will happen, knows--

He will lose this one, too, just like he has lost all the others, just like he has lost all the other creatures he has spawned, but they have never been creatures to him.

That is simply what they've been called, in Asgard, but they have never been monsters to him.

If anything, it is _he_ that is the monster.

He has always been a monster.

"Hey, what are you waiting for?" a voice that has the gall to almost sound bored asks. It's the man of iron, and Loki wants to scream, rage, run far away and have this child, finally raise somebody he has birthed, and the idea sends a sudden flash of a fantasy of a happy life, a flash of hope, into his mind's eye until, suddenly, he realizes that there is no child.

There will be no child.

The monster--a true monster, and Loki feels a wave of revulsion that his children, his beautiful children, could ever be considered the same as that vile creature, because his children are born of him, not of an unfortunate accident with Midgardian technology, and, oh, everybody is so stupid not to understand that Loki's children are not monsters, not creatures, because they are pure creations of himself--has destroyed that. The monster that is now lying in another room, now unconscious, just a man, just a small man, has taken his baby.

Loki knows this now, knows that inside his womb, the child is getting ready to dissipate, to turn into something like acid and something like blood, to cause him extraordinary pain that he will embrace because it is all he will have left of this being that will never be his.

Loki has lost a child before, back when he was--

back when--

back when he was terribly young--

he can barely remember now, but he remembers, in some small form, the pain, and the words that looped through his mind, through the delirium and the desperate shouts of his confused, terrified brother at his bedside--

_no, no, no, this cannot be._

Loki barely notices that he is standing very still, and he does not want to run away anymore, because there is nothing to run away for. He will go back to Asgard.

He will be punished.

But he does not care, because no matter how cruel the punishment for what he has done to Midgard will be, nothing will ever be able to take the place of _this_ , this hope that has has been wrenched from him like the babies he has had torn from his arms time and time again.

"Brother, why do you stall? Are you afraid to face what you have done?"

Loki opens his mouth, faces the hostile countenances of his brother's comrades. Fine warriors, Thor would say, may have already said, will say, if nothing else, anyway.

His throat is as dry as his eyes, and he smiles that terrible smile that feels like his face is unraveling, the only smile he can create, now.

"Do you find something humorous, brother?"

And Loki's smile is gone, because nothing is humorous at all. Thor is, for once, right.

He swallows. "My child," he rasps, and Thor narrows his eyes as his comrades look on, confused. "My child," Loki says again, unable to find any other words. He places his hands on his abdomen, and Thor understands, but instead of anything, anything else, his lips curl upwards in a sneer.

"Loki, this is not a time to lie."

"Oh, I agree with you completely." Loki smiles again, against his will, even laughs, high and grating against his own ears.

"Wait a second, child?" Captain America says in the background, and, oh, what a silly, idiotic human.

"Then what game are you playing, brother?"

"The kind that isn't a game," Loki whispers, and he stumbles over to the wall (the female warrior is pointing a gun at him, but that won't hurt him, nothing can hurt him except _right now_ , because his child is leaving his womb and there is nothing he can do, no magic he can practice with all his energy sapped) and slides to the ground, arms wrapped protectively around his stomach as if, somehow, he can will the once living being inside it to _survive_.

"My baby," he whispers, and then there is the ache, the blood running down his legs from orifices he doesn't usually have. The pain incredible, and Loki screams, because he has a secret, and that is that sometimes he does scream--

he does, he does, he does

\--and there is wetness falling down his face, burning down his cheekbones, and he would just like to...

he would just like to burn _away_.

There is nothing for him, nothing at all, no hope, no hope, because he is a ruined man now, the last thing giving him any sort of worth wrenched away, gone, gone, gone.

His brother is kneeling in front of him, and Loki is sobbing, weeping openly like they are both small again, and he reaches out and takes his brother's face in his hands, clutches the blond hair that he's always thought was too long--

but look, look now, he's almost forgotten his own hair, it's gotten so much longer too, just a change of color and they could...they could _match_

\--and Loki laughs again, that terrible, wretched tearing sound from his throat, mingling with the sobbing until he can't laugh anymore, until all he can do is weep and scream.

The pain has taken over his entire body and now he almost feels nothing, but he must. Loki tries to bring back the pain, tries to embrace it like he might have wrapped his arms around the little one that never was.

"My child," he sobs, "my child, my child, my child," he chants, and then, almost unintelligible through his tears, says, viciously--

No, no, no, this cannot be.

\--"My child is _dead_."

**Author's Note:**

> For your entertainment, dear reader, there is another, quite fantastic first fill to the prompt I responded to for this story, and it happens to be hosted right here on AO3! Check it out! It's Misericorde, by Chi-chi-chimaera (gestalt1), and you get an ugly link because I still can't figure out how to link on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/395956 .


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